The Dressed Body
The clothes we wear are in a very close contact with out boy it in a way forms a part of our body and hence our behaviour.
As we wear different kinds of clothing it helps us to discover something new about our body for example, when I wear an off shoulder t-shirt that makes me notice my collar bone and the sharpness of my shoulders.
“Dress, then, forms part of our epidermis- it lies on the boundary between self and other” (1) because our attitude changes with the kind of clothes we wear. With every different dress we wear, we are a different person with a different attitude.
The intimate interaction of a dress with our body isn’t enough as we are expected to wear a dress to impress so it is very important to keep the social factors in mind while dressing up. Our individualism and our body do not only belong to us in the face of the society. ”It is the vehicle of identity but this identity has to be managed in terms of the definitions of the social situation which impose particular ways of being on the body.”(2)
An individual who wishes to be different with his/her style will not be readily accepted in the society so therefore he/she becomes a victim of the societal norms and expectations.
Dresses have instilled the feeling of self confidence among women because of the rigid structure and form of for example, a pant-suit. A part of the gender discrimination is due to the difference in the clothing style of men and women. Different classes of the society are expected to wear clothes which suits or suggests their social strata. The relationship that we have with the kind of fabric we wear is influenced both historically and culturally. The essence of the fabric worn in the modern world is different from that worn in the earlier era.
We often forget about the fact that no one but ourselves has control over our body therefore the spaces around us that supposedly control our body and behaviour can be altered according to our choices and needs.
(1)Joanne Entwistle, “The Dressed Body” in Real Bodies : A Sociological Introduction, ed. Mary Evans and Ellie Lee.(Palgrave, 2002), 133.
(2)Joanne Entwistle, “The Dressed Body” in Real Bodies : A Sociological Introduction, ed. Mary Evans and Ellie Lee.(Palgrave, 2002), 139.